Laundry and Leather
by Deathly Noted
Summary: Matt does the laundry but makes one fateful mistake... one that will change the world forever!  And by the world I mean Mello's fashion sense.


One of the harshest realities of being an orphan, Matt found, was that he had to do his own laundry. It didn't even make sense since Wammy's House had a massive budget that included a large staff, but unfortunately Roger was in charge of said staff. The stingy old coot was the furthest someone could get from being a loving mother while still being human (unless he was actually an alien come to destroy earth, which would explain a lot), and as the head caretaker at Wammy's House, Roger insisted that all of its pupils attend to their own linens in order to 'build character'. Actually he just liked torturing children. Probably he would've insisted on the orphans making all their own meals as well, preferably consisting of watery soup and hard bread crusts, except that Roger had been wary of pyromaniacs ever since E set fire to the building and now kept the kitchen locked at all times. That really sucked, especially when Matt was marathoning World of Warcraft all night and needed to refuel, because eating Mello's chocolate was of course out of the question. On the rare occasions that Matt died during a raid in his video game, the blame could be traced directly back to Roger, as well as the blame for all of the other problems in this world such as war and genocide, or at least that was the general consensus amongst the student populace at Wammy's House.

In any case, Roger's rules about doing your own laundry led to most of the students at Wammy's House failing to do any laundry at all, opting instead to wear the same outfit day in and day out. Thus it was that L always wore the same jeans and long sleeve shirt, Near always wore white pajamas, Linda always wore her favorite jumper, and Matt always wore the same odd ensemble of jeans, boots, goggles, gloves, striped shirts, and vests if weather permitted. Mello was a bit more fashionable and would rotate his wardrobe, given that everything stayed well within the range of black, because Mello was emo like that. Unfortunately this meant that Mello had a million articles of clothing, barring socks and underwear which he went without, and Matt being Mello's bitch, he was forced to wash all of Mello's clothes in addition to his own.

Life was cruel, Mello was crueler, Matt lamented as he collected the many armfuls of black apparel that had been strewn from corner to corner in their shared dorm room, shoving them into the hamper that was dusty from disuse. Mello continued to study and eat chocolate, blissfully unaware of Matt's suffering or more likely aware and gloating over it, as Matt began the long and laborious trip downstairs, because for someone as lazy as Matt carrying a laundry basket down a hallway equated to intense exercise and left him totally out of breath.

Finally Matt had crammed all of the laundry into the washers (yes, washers, it took three to hold all of Mello's clothes), and so he hopped up on top of one to lay down, his red hair dangling over the edge of the washing machine as he punched well-practiced commands and cheat codes into his Game Boy. It was important to guard your clean laundry at Wammy's House or else one of the other orphans would steal it in order to avoid doing laundry themselves, or else take out your laundry mid-cycle in order to put in their own clothing. Yes, doing laundry at Wammy's House did indeed offer many lessons, particularly in sabotage and theft, although that was probably not what Roger was intending.

The time in the laundry room passed uneventfully, unless catching a rare Pokemon could be called an event, and Matt returned to his and Mello's room, dumping the freshly cleaned laundry in a pile on the floor because he was too lazy to put it away and so was Mello. They had a corner designated as the 'clean' laundry section of the floor for just this purpose. It was about a week later when Mello and Matt finally reached the bottom of the pile of clothes, and what Mello found there, scarred them both for life… well, not really.

"Matt, what the fuck did you do to my vest?" Mello said, appalled, holding up his once lengthy leather vest which had now shrunken down to minimal proportions.

"Uhh…" Matt replied, stalling as he looked up from his Xbox in order to assess the latest damage. He tended to destroy at least one article of clothing a month, not because he didn't know how to do laundry properly but because he was too lazy to separate out colors or fabrics like one was technically supposed to. The current victim of Matt's carelessness, but not the first nor the last, was Mello's favorite leather vest, which admittedly it had been a bad idea to put through the washing machine, but did they seriously expect Matt to buy special leather cleaning equipment and do it all by hand? No, no way in hell, that was like asking Jesus to resurrect himself from the dead. Wait, maybe that was bad example, especially considering Mello was religious and would probably punch Matt in the face for saying as much, but luckily this was only an internal monologue so Matt was safe. "…Do you want my vest instead?"

"No! I want _my _vest, in _my_ size!" Mello snapped back, stubborn as ever. He put the vest over his long-sleeve black shirt as he usually did, but when he tried to zip it up, it wouldn't quite fit. Matt watched totally casually as Mello pulled his shirt off over his head and tried again, and this time it did indeed zip up, though it was so short now that it left the expanse of Mello's bare midriff exposed to Matt's goggled eyes, and I mean that in both senses of the word; his eyes had widened to take in every detail, every shadow that hinted at muscle beneath skin, every dimple…

"Wow Mel, you look hot," Matt said reflexively as he took in the sight of his best friend in the minuscule, form-fitting vest, an impression which was further supported by the fact that Mello's hair had been put into disarray when he pulled his shirt over his head and looked almost sex-ruffled. Realizing what he had just said, Matt quickly unpaused his video game and resumed bashing some zombie's head in with a pickaxe, hoping that Mello wouldn't hone in on his slip-up and rub it in his face as Mello was inclined to do 99% of the time just because he got off on stuff like that.

Luckily his blond-haired friend seemed so entranced by the sight of his own reflection in the mirror that all he gave was a distracted response of, "Really, you think so?" as he turned around to examine himself in the newly form-fitting vest at all angles, front and side and back and front again, then finally Mello put his hands on his hips and smirked to himself. "I do look pretty hot, don't I."

"Mm," Matt said noncommittally, knowing that he was not yet out of the danger zone.

"I guess I'll forgive you, this time," Mello said, with an emphasis on the threat, and Matt relaxed slightly, only to go completely rigid again as Mello sat on his lap and said, "Could you help me get this vest back off, though? I think it's stuck." Yes, for once in his life, the laundry god was on Matt's side. If it meant getting Mello to dress in clothing that would put a hooker to shame and sit on his lap, maybe Matt would do the laundry more often from now on… but then again, probably not.

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><p><strong>AN:** This was supposed to be a drabble, but apparently I am incapable of writing short fanfiction anymore. I know it's not the best thing ever, but I am trying to post everything as I write it or else I let it sit on my hard drive and never post it at all. Thanks for reading and I'd be so grateful if you'd leave a review, your comments mean a lot to me! =D


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